University of Melbourne Alumni in the UK
2010 UK Alumni Celebration, Wednesday 22 September
A very merry catch-up for alumni in UK, Thursday, 3 December 2009
LXX Birthday Dinner for Germaine Greer, 9 September 2009
Piano recital at Royal Festival Hall, 9 June 2009
2010 UK Alumni Celebration, Wednesday 22 September
Join fellow alumni and friends of the University for an evening of networking and reconnecting hosted by The Hon. Alex Chernov AO QC, Chancellor of the University of Melbourne.
When:
Wednesday 22 September | 7.00pm - 9.30pm
Where:
British Academy
10 Carlton House Tce, London SW1Y-5AH
Map
The 2010 UK Alumni Celebration is proudly sponsored by the University of Melbourne in collaboration with the University’s UK Alumni Association
Photos
A very merry catch-up for alumni in UK, Thurs, 3 December
Alumni living in, or visiting London are invited to celebrate the festive season with Christmas drinks at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, featuring a special talk on Australian art in the UK by artist Peter Clark.
Peter Clark – Bio
Old maps, love letters, stamps, playing cards, match boxes, rosettes, buttons and labels all form the starting point of collage-artist Peter Clark's innovative and often humourous works. He undertakes scavenger trips to antiques fairs, markets and second hand stores to find the right objects to inspire him.
Clark has exhibited with the Rebecca Hossack Gallery in London and at art fairs around the world, Paul Smith stores in New York, LA and Milan and has recently released the book Paperwork - the first fully illustrated book on his work.
When: Thursday 3 December 2009, 6.30pm - 9.00pm
Where: Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery
2a Conway Street, London W1T 6BA
Price: £10 at the door
RSVP: Email to kerryukalumni@googlemail.com
Enquiries: Phone Clare 0207 8330 704
LXX Birthday Dinner for Germaine Greer, 9 September 2009
A special UK alumni association event was held to celebrate the birthday of Professor Germaine Greer (BA (Hons) 1958). This black and white themed dinner was held at the Haymarket Hotel in London - a landmark building designed by the legendary John Nash. Over a three course dinner, UK alumni and guests enjoyed networking and hearing from both Dr Glenn Bowes, Associate Dean (Advancement and Knowledge Transfer), Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, who was visiting London and able to attend the event, and Professor Greer.
Click here to view photo gallery
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Piano Recital at Royal Festival Hall, 9 June 2009
ON a day of industrial action on London's Underground network reported to have cost the UK economy £100 million over two days, twenty-five of the University's UK Alumni found a way to Royal Festival Hall for a piano recital and reception overlooking the London Eye, Thames River and iconic Houses of Parliament. Special guest speaker Professor Malcolm Gillies (DMus 2004) gave a wonderful introduction to the works being performed by pianist Piotr Anderszewski, discussing amongst other topics how artists go about putting together a programme of the one that was performed. Professor Gillies awarded a CD containing one of the works being performed to the oldest alumnus in attendance, having discovered there were alumni present from every decade since the 1940s.
The Guardian's music critic, Andrew Clements, who gave the concert at 5 star rating said:
"Gesänge der Frühe was Schumann's last major work, composed in 1853 just before his final mental breakdown. Generally dismissed as inferior to the earlier, better-known piano cycles, it is hardly ever heard, but characteristically Piotr Anderszewski chose to begin his Festival Hall recital with it. Though even his mercurial way with Schumann could do little with the doggedly insistent central movement, his rapt unfolding of the chorale-like opening and closing numbers, and gossamer touch with the swirling textures of the fourth showed that, beneath all the muddiness, Schumann's very personal vein of musical poetry still survives.
Anderszewski linked the pieces without a break to Bach's E minor Partita, whose buoyancy and rhythmic vigour provided the perfect antidote to such dark-hued introspection. The clarity, litheness and unforced spontaneity of his Bach was a constant joy, tracing a seamless arc from the elaborate figuration of the opening Toccata to the leaping muscularity of the final, fugal Gigue, and making unexpected contrapuntal connections across the interval to Janácek's In the Mists, in which the episodes of each movement were fiercely contrasted and the musing, wistful melodies between them hauntingly voiced.
Beethoven's A flat Sonata Op110 was the last work, presented, like the rest of the recital, without a trace of unnecessary flamboyance, yet conceived as a single musical organism, with every chord perfectly weighted, every phrase exactly balanced. Throughout the recital, the delicacy and control of Anderszewski's pianissimo playing were sources of wonder, and the return of the fugue in the finale of the Beethoven was a breathtaking moment, fragile and intense at the same time. The encores - Bartók folksongs, then more Bach - were perfectly judged, too."
When asked by an alumnus during the pre concert talk what encore the pianist might perform,
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Professor Gillies thought it could be one of the Six Bagatelles by Bartok, a work the pianist was scheduled to perform but substituted at the last moment. He was nearly right - one of the encores was Bartók folksongs, which he told us were written just one year earlier than the Bagatelles.
The Committee of the University of Melbourne UK Alumni Association would like to thank Professor Gillies for his participation in this event.
Damien Boyle
Treasurer, University of Melbourne UK Alumni Association
